Chris Voss - Negotiation Tactics From An Ex-FBI Hostage Negotiator

This is an intro. Intro, intro, intro.

Hustle and Float Shark with your boy.

My boy, Matt Wolf.

Hey, what's up, everyone?

Hi there.

Hey.

Welcome back to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast.

We're back again.

My name is Matt Wolfe. I'm here with Joseph Fear, co host Joseph Fear.

I introduce myself. Damn it.

I just keep on talking over you.

Keep on rolling then.

I just keep on rolling. I don't. I don't care what you want.

It's not a good negotiation tactic, my friend.

It's not, but my friend is.

See, I'm putting you on an even plane. Yeah, my friend.

Are you hinting at something for this episode?

Maybe. But you can speak it out if you wish.

Yeah. So today we're talking to Chris Voss, author of Never Split the Difference, which is probably the best book you can possibly purchase on the art of negotiating.

100%. 100%.

Now, this dude, he's an, he's an ex FBI hostage negotiator. So he's got some really cool stories about hostage negotiations. And then he translated his hostage negotiation experience into how to negotiate for sales and how to negotiate in business and, well, pretty much anything in life. We even talk about using negotiations to strengthen your relationships.

So, hey, why wouldn't you want to learn negotiation techniques? Yeah, no, it's super cool.

It's really cool. And, and Chris, he's actually got a really, really awesome newsletter where he's, he's sending out tips and tactics and things like that all the time. And he wants our listeners to join it, as you very well should, because it's great advice and here's how you get on it. You actually text the number 22828.

So you don't do this while driving though, please.

Yes, don't do this while driving, but send a text to the number 22828 and in that text message type the word FBI empathy. All one word, no spaces, no capitals, just FBI empathy. Text that to 22828 and you're gonna get on Chris Voss's mailing list with all of his tips and tactics and things that he mails to your email.

Yeah, he said it's what, a Tuesday newsletter. And it's just like bite sized digestible and you could just swipe some really cool technique action item thought, whatever it might be around this negotiation stuff. And I think after listening to this, I am like more giddy to go down the rabbit hole because like that book, man, it's cool. And then, and then there's just. Yeah, I don't know. This interview is fascinating. Yeah.

No, you're going to love this interview. If you talk to people in your life, you're probably going to enjoy and get some value out of this. Like quite literally, if you ever have conversations with people, this is a valuable interview for you to listen to because it's going to help you be a better communicator in general. Just period.

It will. Yeah.

Right.

Yeah. And I even said a story about, you know, my wife Heather and like how she was asking me why and I reframe that. I'll say it in the interview of why and how I did that. Yeah. And Chris is like, there you go. Yeah. So you can apply it everywhere. Everything's just a common communication and it's not a combative thing like negotiation. I think a lot of folks think it's like this like hard nose sales thing or I'm going to a car dealership, I'm going to get the best deal out. Like chill out.

Yeah. I mean, some of these tactics will.

Help with that 100 for sure. But that's not what negotiate overall. Like, that's not everything. It's everything. It's communicating for sure, with empathy and all that fun stuff.

For sure.

And we also took notes on this episode for you.

Always. Always. Yeah.

So if you go to hustleandflowchart.com comp, I want to remind you that these notes are only available for a limited time. You have about a week window to go grab these notes from the day the episode goes live and then they kind of get overwritten by future notes on future episodes. So when this episode out, you're going to want to go grab those notes over at hustleandflowchart.com comp c o m.

P Be quick though, because they will go away and be replaced by other episode notes, which is cool and dandy, but you just got to be quick.

Yeah, we don't want to hear complaints from people in support about, oh, I didn't get those notes because I didn't get in in time. Well, we told you, we warned you.

We done told you.

All right, so stop sending us complaints to our support that you didn't get them in time because they're there right now. Depending on when you're listening to this.

There'S just one person that has that.

Yeah, well, that person. Listen up, buddy. I won't call you out by name, but they're there for a limited time. Hustlinflowchart.com comp go get them. They do go away. I'm not joking.

Matt means business.

We do have a sponsor.

We do. I know, Good point. I mean, I'm just laughing over here. Our sponsor is Ahrefs and they're just badass. We've told you before. They, these guys, we were using their tool years and years prior to them ever even approaching us for sponsorship when they did. We're like, duh. So we've been telling you, like, if you go on previous episodes, you can hear, like little tidbits of how we use Ahrefs and cool little tools. Check out their YouTube channel. If you just like, Google Ahrefs, that's a H R E F S in Google. Or you can YouTube it. I said Google the YouTube.

Yeah, Google their YouTube account.

Just go over to Ahrefs and find their channel and like, sort by, I don't know, most popular or whatever, you'll see a ton of things. I mean, they. They literally have things about YouTube, local marketing, how to get folks to actually link back to your sites. Like, if you have wix. Why would you have wix? If you have wix, I mean, there's like all these different method. They basically all these things are like 10, 15 minute long videos, but they're straight up tutorial videos on how to do this stuff. So you kind of have no excuses and like, oh, I don't know, I don't need this tool. And like, what if.

But Ahrefs is too expensive, Joe.

Hmm.

Well, lucky you. There's a trial offer. If you can, you know, find some change into your couch seats. I'm sure you can afford this for at least a week. So it's. It's a dollar a day for seven days. It's a seven day trial and you get full access to Ahrefs if you go to ahrefs.com, that's a h r e f s dot com.

Seven bucks, seven days. You're gonna get it, you're gonna use it. You're gonna be like, holy crap, this is gonna make me so much money. And you're probably never gonna cancel it because, well, I mean, I like making money.

And, you know, it's cool because, like, you can. I want to make people feel bad, but you can, like, go and do like a site audit on, like, one of your friends. You'd be like, bro, your site is whack, dude.

It is such a good way to make money. We weren't even planning on talking about this. But if you were to get Ahrefs and you're gonna plug somebody else's site into Ahrefs and then go to them and be like, hey, I just ran an audit on your site. I can fix this up for you. Just pay me two grand a month. Boom. You just bought 20 Ahrefs accounts.

There you go. Okay. If you don't have any money for the ongoing after the trial, just sell a fr. An audit. Swear to God, you sell that thing for the monthly, whatever it is. Done. Yeah, you're like, you can make that money just by like one sale.

But for now, go pay the seven bucks. Check it out. For seven days. A H R F S dot com. Let's go talk some negotiation with Chris Boss.

Hey, Chris, welcome to the show.

Hey, I'm happy to be here. Thanks for having me on.

Yeah. So, yeah, we. I was telling you, it was Roland made the connection. I think you've been on his show. That was a fun interview over there. His business lunch podcast. Yeah. And we've just been seeing your name. Your book. Never split the difference around in the marketing community specifically. That's kind of where we live a lot of our time. But yeah, it was just like, okay, we gotta talk to the man. Gotta have the man on the show here and dive deep. And. Yeah, thank you for your time. So I appreciate you very much.

Yeah. And it's cool. And I know it's been resonating with people in the marketing community and some other slices of the community as well, and it's been really. It's cool. It's a lot of fun. The book's doing well.

Yeah, no kidding. So it's been out, what, a few years now, I believe, right? A couple years.

Just had the third anniversary. It's a little. It's still a toddler. It's still three.

Nice. Well, happy anniversary.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

Yeah. Now for. Yeah, for folks, because I know you're doing a lot. You have a really interesting background in the FBI and all the different negotiation situations. You've Ben and yourself. Now you have the Black Swan group. Give us a little overview of. Maybe we start with a brief backstory. We won't go too crazy on that. And then catch us up on what you're doing today.

Well, yeah, it was an FBI agent. I was an FBI hostage negotiator. Ended up being the FBI's lead international kidnapping negotiator. Negotiator. And I kind of. When I got into it, I learned the hard way that negotiation is just. Or kidnapping is. Is just a business transaction.

We took our hostage negotiation stuff and started applying it to that business. If you Will and then ended up collaborating, collaborating with the guys at Harvard. And we all decided we're all doing the same stuff. It's just the stakes that were different.

Yeah. Interesting. So you spent what, 25 years in the FBI lead those types of negotiations?

Well, I was, I was. Total time in a Bureau is 24 years.

24.

And then it was. You start out as a hostage negotiator as an additional duty, and then if your career evolves, you can go full time. And so I was, I was full time my last seven years on the job, as my NYPD brothers would say.

Was there any specific, like negotiation or scenario you were involved in where you had that realization of, wow, this is just a, you know, a transaction, just like any other transaction action?

Well, when I first got introduced to the kidnapping negotiations, if you will, because, you know, the best analogy is kidnapping negotiations, buy side, and you know, like a classic what you'd see in a movie where a guy's in a bank and you're trying to talk them out, that sort of sell side, if you will. And most hostage negotiators don't get both.

Most.

Most are just sell side guys. One of my guys likes to say, you know, as a hostage negotiator, I was in sales. I sold jail sentences and I had customers.

That makes sense.

Yeah, yeah, it really was. It was sell side and kidnapping was buy side. And the first time I got the lecture on the kidnapping stuff without knowing what I was getting into, the guy who was, who was a friend then a mentor said, you know, well, in every kidnapping country, every country you go into, you need to check because there's. The bad guys are going to have a standard amount they're going to ask for. There's going to be a standard amount that they're going to expect to settle on, and there's going to be an expected amount of time that they think it's going to take. And you get the data from the other. The information from the other kidnappings in the area, you'll know what those numbers are. And I remember thinking like that, hearing that and thinking I should describe it. A market. This is a market.

Yep.

And it was, you know, it was. And then we would do. We would do marketing in the market, you know, when we would have hostage families make statements in the media to affect, you know, the people that were in the. And on the other side of the transaction with us. And the most dangerous negotiations, the one you don't know you're in. And that's kind of definition of marketing Isn't it?

That's a very good point. Yeah. Wow.

Now I imagine you probably have some pretty crazy stories from your time as a negotiator. Are there any like that really come to mind of like a just like a really interesting story doesn't even have to tie into like the digital marketing stuff that we're talking about. I'm just really kind of fascinated about that, that, that hostage negotiation world. Are there any like, like one or two stories that are just top of mind that really stick out for you?

You know, there's a number of them and one of my favorite favorites was this Fox journalist named Steve Santana. He gets grabbed in a Gaza Strip and just vanishes. I mean, friggin vanishes. And the Gaza Strip, I mean, you know, it's a fishbowl. It's tough for somebody to vanish and nobody to know where they are. You know. So initially we figure, you know, we assume the worst body vanishes and not alive. And so there's a fair amount of floundering around the case. The Fox people very concerned about their executives. You know, depending upon which side of the political spectrum you are on, you may or may not like Fox, but they cared about their people. They cared about Steve Cintani.

Sure.

Working a case, the guy's vanished and suddenly a group of bad guys claims to have him and, but they don't want to talk directly. And so we start coaching the people involved to make statements in the media and then initially, and then it begins to have an effect on the bad guys. And we actually, to everybody's credit, you know, to have a statement that affects somebody, you have to make it with respect.

And because respect is a great currency, always respect the other side. And then they got into a proof of life issue and you know, they, they float, we float a proof of life question which they didn't answer correctly. And we, instead of giving in, we said, hey, look, you didn't answer right. We don't think you have.

Which that immediately suggested the bad guys on the other side of the table realized at that point in time the people who knew what they were doing were the counterparts. And they weren't going to be able to frighten us or intimidate us or get us to do stupid things. And thank, thank goodness that Fox took all our coaching. And when we coached the Fox people to say, you didn't answer it right? And they want to say, well that's close enough, that's close enough. We can't risk anybody's life here. And I said, no, they know they didn't get it right. And we got to show them that the people on both sides of the table here, professionals, and we're not going to be scared. As soon as they came back with that nuanced answer, very short order, the bad guys ended up letting send Centani go.

Wow. Wow. It's just these subtleties that you can pick up on. I love that you were able to coach them as well and they took your coaching and applied it.

Yeah. You know, and really what I was when I ran the FBI's international kidnap operations, the negotiation response, I was a coach. I mean, I don't, you know, I don't speak Arabic. How am I going to go to the Gaza Strip and do the negotiations? My stuff, I got to find somebody that speaks a local lingo. All they have to do is be coachable. And that's really why the business has done really well. Because we're not going to know the nuances of your industry, but we do know human nature. And if you're coachable will make you better.

That's awesome. So talk about what you're doing now with the Black Swan group and how you're actually coaching folks through that, through your book and all that.

We do it, we do it at all levels. I mean, we come into people's companies and we give training. We, we do, we focus a lot more on individuals and companies.

You know, we focus on high performance individuals. If, if you're, if you understand that you need more than just experience to get better, because experience is a teacher, but it's not the most effective teacher. It needs to be a component of what you learn. But you need to go to people that not only know what they're talking about, but also know how to teach. And you run into a lot of people that know what they're talking about, but they don't know how to teach. Like, Magic Johnson was a great basketball player. Yeah, he wasn't a good coach.

You know, Phil Jackson, the greatest coach in, in my view, the history of the NBA, he didn't even start on the team that he played on. Now he played on a championship team and he was their sixth man and he probably won six man of the year a couple times, but he wasn't even good enough to start on his team. Coaching and playing are two different things. So if you're coachable, we'll coach you up. We'll help you learn it. We hold in day one day in person training sessions. We do a lot of stuff online. We coach individuals one on one I mean, we are into this stuff. You know, I get it. You want to go fast, go alone, you want to go far, go as a team. I got a team. And every one of us handles a different aspect of the business. And my guys are good.

Yeah. No, it speaks through the book, you know, never split the difference. And. And how you could just apply that. You know, business owners listening can apply it to literally every walk of life, every conversation. That's what you said. It's essentially. It's a conversation. It seems like a deeper conversation. If you're asking the right questions as well. Would you say it's kind of the fact.

Yeah. Asking right questions or even knowing that you need information, because actually asking a question is not always the best way to get information.

So, you know, we teach people why that is and what the difference is. I mean, we teach. There's one. One skill that. That we teach is kind of magic. It's almost kind of unfair.

I like it. Let's hear it.

The quickest way to get some information out of somebody is get them to correct you.

So how would you do that, you know?

Well, you know, you might repeat back what they said. You just repeat it back to them wrong. Like if intentionally getting. Trying to paraphrase what they said or trying to get the gist of what they said, intentionally repeating them back to them wrong. And what they'll do is they'll correct you more clearly and more concisely. And a lot of times correcting is so satisfying. Correcting is overwhelmingly satisfying that they'll tell you stuff they would not have otherwise have told you.

That makes sense because it puts them in the driver's seat and, you know, or seemingly they think they're in the driver's seat, you know, but you're getting more information, it seems like.

Yeah, yeah. It just. Then that's exactly why they feel like they're in the driver's seat. And there's. I mean, correcting might as well be one of the seven deadly sins. I mean, there ain't nothing more satisfying than correcting somebody.

Yeah.

So get them to correct you and they're gonna. It's astonishing information people will reveal as a result of correcting you because you got it wrong.

Yeah, that makes sense because I remember in the book, and this is where we've heard some. Some of our buddies actually use specific, you know, Lang, from your book, never split the difference and how they were going after a. No first, it seems like. And, you know, in negotiations to get them to correct or give them more information Whatever it might be, best intentions. But talk a little bit about how you seek out the no in a conversation first before going for a yes or anything like that.

Yeah, well, all the time. I mean, we don't even bother with yes. I mean, people feel safe and protected when they say no. They feel like they've, they haven't accidentally committed themselves to anything. And also when they say no, they're correcting you to another to a degree, and that kicks that satisfaction in. And frequently when they're saying no, also, they're protecting themselves from a loss as opposed to a gain. And so you put a whole bunch of stuff in there. And our routine questions are, I don't say this is, do you agree with this? I'll say, do you disagree? You might say, no, I don't disagree. But here are the following problems. Now, if I'd have said, does anything about this work for you where I'm looking for a yes. And if there are problems, I want you to tell me you're not going to give me a straight answer because you're going to feel like if you say yes to any aspect of this, you've made a commitment, you don't want to back out of that commitment. So if you tell me what the problems are and I fix them, having said yes, you're going to feel obligated. So, you know, you won't give me the problems freely after a yes. You give them to me freely after a no. Because you don't feel this obligation, you don't feel this trap that is interesting.

I haven't thought of it that way, but you're committing yourself to something with a yes. And humans love consistency. So typically going to want to follow through. And so they're like, I don't want to give them a yes.

Actually thinking of, like negotiations that I've been in in the past where people have used it on me and I'm just, it's just now clicking in my head that that was used on me. I remember somebody was trying to sell me like a consulting package at one time and they asked the question, would it be out of out of the question to believe that we can work together on this? And. And I was like, no, that's not out of the question. And they're like, would it. I don't remember the exact line of questioning, but like, it's just kind of clicking in my head now that they probably read your book.

Well, hopefully, you know, and use your powers for good and not evil because you're going to get further down the road. And if you got a legitimate service, I mean if you are a value add, if you do believe in over delivering, like in my company, we over deliver. Like we make a deal and we're going to knock ourselves out for you. If I get signed up for a keynote speech, you know, and they say, ah, come in and do a book sign. Okay, I'll do the book sign. You know, what about coming in for dinner the night before and talking with our senior leadership? Once I make the deal, I'm going to over deliver. And if that's what you believe in, then yeah, you should be using these techniques.

Yeah, yeah. No, it's. And that's, that's where I guess the intention overall, would that be kind of like the pre work, you know, because I know, I'm sure before negotiation there's some kind of prep work and you're, you know, mentally maybe some notes assessing whatever your goals are here. Can you speak on that? And that kind of lines everything up, it seems like.

Yeah, well, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna turn around a little bit because most people focus on their goals, we focus on a communication strategy. There's a problem with focusing on your goals is sometimes you get tunnel vision. And one of our sayings is never be so sure of what you want that you wouldn't take something better. And the more goal focused you are, the more likely it is you're gonna miss a better deal. So our communication strategies are, our preparation strategy is really about maximizing the communication and unearthing what we would call a black swan. A black swan is a little thing that would change everything. Nicholas Nassim Taleb wrote a book back in 2007 called the Black Swan based on the metaphor of the black swan, which was something that nobody expected. And then it changes everything. And our idea is to get in there early and not assume that we know the best goal, but assume that the other side has some really cool things that would change everything if we could just find out from them about that. That's what our strategy is designed to do.

Yeah, so it sounds like leverage, you know, figuring out, okay, so what do they have that I might want and vice versa.

Well, leverage is the beginning of your thinking and leverage then should really morph into influence and then, and then collab a great collaboration because leverage is about, you know, what do I hold against them? What, what might they hold against me? And that, you know, that's not really collaborative, you know, that's adversarial. And for us to maximize the possibilities, we gotta. We gotta switch from adversarial into collaborative. And that's why we like to think much more in terms of influence and leverage. Because leverage is kind of. Leverage is kind of two dimensional influence much more three dimensional.

Yeah, now that makes sense. And that's what's kind of cool in this whole thing. Reading the book. It's very communicative. You use a lot of empathy, which I want to get into. I think that would be really fascinating. And it's for the better good. It's really. You're trying to move people forward out of whatever situation they're in.

Yeah, yeah. Because if you're talking to somebody, I mean, you're both faced with different aspects of the same problem. So to maximize the solution, since you're both faced with different aspects of the same problem, the same challenge or the same opportunity, you really can't get as much off the table. You can't maximize your outcome without collaborating with the other side.

Yeah. And would that start with being very empathetic? You know, kind of seeing their point of the point of view and communicating that. That. Yeah.

Empathy. Empathy is everything. I mean, we call it tactical empathy because empathy has come to be aligned with two problems, you know, really, sympathy and compassion.

And.

Which means like, how do you have sympathy for somebody who's against you? Or how do you have compassion for somebody whose views of the world or business or the situation are radically opposed to yours? So, you know, take it out of this sympathy and compassion realm. But make no mistake, using empathy is a compassionate thing to do. It's a, it's a fine line there. But I'm really just trying to understand your perspective. Only because from your perspective, you see things I don't. That could help me if I'll just open my eyes. I'm just, you know, and I'm really. It's. It's kind of a mercenary's tool, really. I mean, missionaries love it, but it's really a mercenary tool. It's about better deals.

Yeah, no, it seems that way with all the right questions and the more you're gathering, you're just, you know, not at the same time. You might make them feel really heard, you know, felt through whatever difficult situation they're. They're going through, especially a kidnapping or some. Something really traumatic. But even in business, or your business.

Is up against the wall, or you're not, you know, you're not making your quarterly numbers or your annual numbers or a company that we were talking to the other day, if they'd have just collected on all the contracts they had signed. They'd exceeded their annual numbers. But since they didn't collect on all the contracts that were signed, they fell short of their numbers. Now they made the deals, but, you know, they didn't realize the revenue. And so, you know, they're all bent out of shape over, over money that's out. They don't even have to get any better. They just have to collect on what the deals that they made.

Yeah.

So that's, you know, that makes you feel like you're a hostage. Right. I mean, they go from their, their, their annual meeting is either celebratory or it's a downer. They're scared. They're taking themselves hostage over their reaction to the numbers.

So what do you suggest for them to do in that scenario?

Well, one of the real, one of the real big problems is some of the deals that you sign are never going to happen because the other side's just never going to perform. So you get, you need triage earlier, earlier on to find out whether or not the deal was ever going to be there. You know, there's a saying in sales. It's not a sin to not get the deal. It's a sin to take a long time to not get the deal.

So we need a diagnosis, a much more of a diagnosis up front as to whether or not this deal is ever going to happen. And you got to go back and rethink some of your processes. Then what it does is it not only eliminates those deals that you're never going to collect on, but sign. You spend a lot less time chasing bad deals.

I could see that. Yeah. So that's interesting because this would be super applicable here to almost everyone listening if they're doing phone sales or just email or whatever it might be in follow up. What are some key systems that you would suggest to filter or I don't know if it's filtering is the right word, but kind of prepare for that sales conversation, making sure you're with the right people that will follow through with the right people.

And also how do you get lined up with them as. As soon as possible, you know, and so really what you want to do is you want to start out by saying like, you know, I got a lot of great competitors, you know, and this. And you've got relationships with some of my competitors who are really good people.

What is it about my company that appeals to you? You know, ask it in a genuinely curious way because.

That'S a legitimate question. And you're allowed to ask legitimate questions. And also if you want to change that from a question, what we call a label, you could say, seems like you got some reasons for talking to me instead of my competitors. Like you really want to know. Now let's say you got a 10 point value proposition. They're going to pick out the parts of you that appeal to them most. And that's how you should be guided from that point forward. Because let's say there are 10 reasons they should be doing business with you. If you start on the least of those reasons, you are wasting their time. And they're going to be asking themselves, yeah, you know, what's important to them doesn't seem to be important to us. Maybe we're wasting our time. You're going to lose them. You need to get honed in right off the bat as to what about you matters to them. I mean, there's no shortage of salespeople that say, I hate it when the CEOs in a room and we make our pitch because we're not going to get a third of the way into our presentation. He's going to interrupt us and start firing questions. Well, what that dynamic really is, is you've been wasting a CEO's time on stuff he doesn't care about. And thank God he got fed up and started asking you questions instead of storming out of the room.

Sure, he just saved everybody time.

Yeah, but that's a cliche among salespeople and even marketing people. Ah, we hate it when the CEO interrupts. Actually, that should. The, the problem ain't on the other side. The problem's on your side. And he's telling you that you're not dialed into what matters to him. And you know, you can do that up front. You don't have, you know, you, you spend three hours on your, on your presentation and people, I gotta do, I worked on this for three hours. I gotta do the whole thing. No, you don't. You know, be prepped. But start out by trying to figure out what parts matter most to your counterpart. And you're going to save yourself a massive amount of time.

I love that and I love the opening the door with a question like you said, what is it about us that stands out? Or why are we talking today in your perspective or yeah, what is it about my company? And then immediately you can hone in the conversation at least started out going down that vein.

Yeah. And then you could start to pick out where you might be overselling too. If you start like, if you have like 10 bullet points of these are the main value propositions, and they hone in on three of them, but you start talking about two of them that they didn't mention, then you're kind of overselling or you're selling in the wrong direction.

Yeah, selling in the wrong direction, exactly right. And what they're suggesting, again, never be so sure of what you want that you wouldn't take something better. There's probably a way they could tweak for you what you're offering and make it even more profitable for you and even more effective for them, which sort of doubles value on both sides.

Yeah. And it's all with listening and prompting them. It seems like guiding them down the vein that they were approaching you about.

Anyway, all three of those things combined. Listening, prompting, and guiding. Absolutely. You got to listen to be able to get the prompts right. And then, you know, data improves. Design feedback that they've given you now continues to help you hone in on what matters to the other side.

Now, if somebody's response to that question, you know, why did you come to me about this? If somebody's response is, oh, I'm just. I'm kind of exploring all the options. I'm talking to you and the competitors. Is that kind of a sign that maybe they're not the right person, or is that. Is that an indicator of something else that might take the conversation in a different direction?

Well, in every interaction, there's a favorite and a fool. And if you don't know who the fool in the game is, who is it?

So that kind of an answer tells you you're the fool in the game.

Good point.

That's when you politely extricate. This is. This is taking a long time to not get the deal. And this horrifies a lot of entrepreneurs in the early stages. And there hasn't been a single seasoned person that I've run across that hasn't said, man, if you'd have taught that to me 10 years ago.

We'D have a lot more money in our bank account right now.

Yep. And be working a lot less. Because you're working with the right people.

Yeah, you're working. You're working with the right people. I mean, one of. One of my favorite. And the right people is an interesting point. You know, one of my favorite guys out there who's also heavy duty into marketing, you know, Joe Polish. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Joe. Oh, yeah, I'm a huge Joe Polish fan. He's a friend, and he's A colleague. And he's a brilliant dude.

Sure.

You know, and he's. There's two acronyms. He likes. He likes. He says there's half clients and there's elf clients.

Hard, annoying, lame and frustrating. And the L might even be lucrative. But if they're hard, annoying and frustrating, they're not the right people, they're the wrong people. And instead you're looking for the elf people. Easy, lucrative and fun.

Yeah.

And that's what your focus should be. And I love that I quote Joe on that stuff all the time.

Yeah, no, it's brilliant. I forgot about the elf. But yeah, it's amazing. And why wouldn't, why would you want to be in business without elves as your clients? And they look. Yeah.

And even though there's a minority, it's a big world.

Sure.

So you know that, that minority doesn't mean there aren't still several million of them out there.

Oh, they're out there. Yeah. So how would you suggest.

Like, what are some common ways that.

Let me see here. Actually, you kind of answered that. I was just thinking of how to. The filtering really. Because it's like the way that we bring elves, quote unquote, else into our business is our content. It's this podcast, it's our follow ups. And they kind of almost self select, which is really cool.

Yeah.

If you have enough value out there and you're speaking their language, the right people attach to that language and you know, you put a little lure out there into the, into the pond or whatever it is with an email and like, oh, there's a response and then the conversation at sales time is pretty dang simple and fun. So yeah, I could totally see that working out.

Yeah. And that's exactly it. If you're putting out free content and they're attracted you because they resonate with that content.

That's one of the great pre screening issues. And we will talk to people and if they haven't come after us for our content, I'm going to try to find out from them what, if any content they're after. Because some, you know, like sometimes I'll get a. I get ahead of sales who's only talking to us because one of his people is a huge fan. But this head of sales, you know, they don't. He does. This guy doesn't read anything. You know, he's, he doesn't listen to podcasts. He doesn't read books. He doesn't. He or she, you know, they don't go. They don't specifically work to make themselves better. What's that guy telling me? That guy's telling me that by and large, he believes that the best teacher is experience, which means he's not going to invest in education for his people.

So you start to follow the thread. The best indicator of future behavior is past behavior. You take a look at what behavior led you into an interaction with that person. If you're willing to look at it, you know.

Fairly, legitimately, not with any bias, it's going to tell you whether or not what they're going to be like to deal with.

Yeah.

And. And you guys, if they're listening to a podcast, they're not just listening to your podcast. But the mere fact that somebody listens to a podcast is somebody that's working to make themselves better on their own in their spare time. And those lean you in the direction of somebody who's easy, lucrative, and fun. You.

I love it. That's perfect. See, that's selling the merits of a podcast right there too. You know, it's having one of your own. It's true. Now, what are some. What are some big, like, from your clients and experience some of the biggest mistakes that people make when it comes to negotiation. Some of the things that just make you cringe and you're like, oh, no, no.

Well, it's a real common one is you got to make your points first. You know, I got to get my logic out there. I got to get my reasoning out there. I got to talk first. I got to get a number out there first. You know, the really shrewd negotiator is going to want to get you talking. You know, one of the things we believe in is that he or she who talks most loses.

I mean, if you look at negotiation as an information gathering process, and you should.

You know, you're not learning while you're talking, the other side's talking. Boy, you are gathering tons of information, and they're going to tell you directly or probably indirectly, you know, where the influence points are, where the keys are, where the real value is. And if you're busy making your case, you're not getting any of that data.

Yeah.

You know, information is power. Knowledge is power. The more you get knowledge you gather, the more power you have in the negotiation. So the biggest thing is just convincing people to shut up to start off.

I could see that. Yeah. And what if you're, I guess, some tactics on strategies to get folks talking. It's definitely, I would assume, asking the right questions. I know you have some words that you avoid, like, why for instance.

Well, you got to be real careful with why, because why causes defensiveness, which is, you know, the, the worst double edged sword out there is all the business advice is find out the other side's why. Well, the strategy is good. You want to get at their motivation, you want to get at why they want what they want.

But asking why makes people feel defensive. Yeah, thousand percent of the time. Yeah. My, I'm blessed. My son has turned into a star negotiator and he's the director of operations and cuts all our deals and we talk about this stuff all the time. And his view is that all of us, no matter what country we grew up in, when we were two or three years old and we started knocking things over and breaking them, every time we did something wrong, the nearest adult would jump up and point a finger at us and say, why did you do that?

Yeah.

No matter what the language was. And so this, this why creates a defensiveness. And you will not get a genuine answer out of someone when they feel like they're on the defensive. I mean, it disturbs rapport. It's just there's so many things wrong with it. It could be very well intentioned. They tell you, you know, what about your value proposition they like, and you say, yeah, well why did you focus on that? They're going to feel like they did.

Something wrong because he spotlighted and called him out.

Yeah. So, you know, why is something to be really careful of. And the simple hack to that is just switch your why to a what and it takes this thing of accusation right off of it.

Why do you want that? What makes you want that? People answer that question, what makes you.

Yeah, it's actually funny because sometimes, you know, my wife, as we all have spouses out there that are like, oh, they might call out a behavior or something that is like, oh, why are you mad? Why are you angry? And I remember after reading your book, I was like, you know what, I'm just gonna give you a little feedback. Heather, my wife. And I was like, try rephrasing it to this. And I swear to God, I don't get irritated anymore.

Ah, very good.

Making domestic, increasing domestic tranquility globally. Yeah.

Thank you, Chris.

Now Chris could go rebrand his book as a relationship advice book as well.

Some people use it for that.

It's a true story, man.

It's about human communication and legitimate collaboration. So where, you know, where wouldn't you want to use it? Right?

Yeah, I love it. So in your book you talk about the, the three negotiator types. You've got the analyst, the assertive, and the accommodator. Can. Can you speak into what each of those are and kind of how you. You spot them? Because I'm kind of curious. I think it's really interesting to see, like, how you might speak differently to the different types of.

Yeah, you know, this is from the caveman days. I mean, the caveman that survived. When they were faced with a threat, you got one of three survival responses. Fight flight, make friends, run from it, fight it off, find a way to collaborate with it, make friends with it. Those are the cavemen that survive. And this is in our wiring. And it's in our wiring globally. I mean, it's in the Chinese, it's in the Mexicans, it's in the Brits, it's in the Indians. It's in, you know, pick a country, fight flight, or make friends. And you will find that the population splits pretty evenly into thirds. And when we have problems, it's usually based on the mismatch of this default conflict type. And it's. You know, a fight guy is a direct guy. I mean, you never wonder where the assertive is coming from. They're gonna tell you they believe in logic. And the problem with them is they tell you in such an abrupt fashion that it always puts people off so they don't appreciate the fact. The guy, so strict guy gal, so straightforward, because they're just dealing. And I'm a natural born assertive. If I default to my natural way of dealing with people. I once had a friend of mine say, dealing with you is like getting hit in the face with a brick.

That's nice.

Friend. Sounds like he was being the assertive.

In that moment, you know, And I had pounded him enough. He's like, geez, man, you got no idea how hard you are to deal with. And I'd be, yeah, but I'm honest, you know, that ain't good enough. And then the flight kind, the flight kind of guy, you know, these are highly analytical types. These are the guys that just see conflict as inherently counterproductive and they would rather solve a problem on their own because they figure they're going to spend less time arguing about what the problem is when it could have just been solved. And these are highly analytical types. Now, each aspect of the type no. 1 is a natural born best negotiator. You need aspects of all three to become as good as you can be.

Okay?

And, you know, you need to. You need to let people know where you're coming from. In order to have a great deal, you need to be analytical about it. You need to be able to explore options and pull in data, because our analysts love data. They want information, so you need that. The third type is the make friends type, the accommodator. In point of fact, you need better relationships to get further.

In both the assertives and the fighters. And the fighters, the analysts, they see how much farther the relationship oriented people get. And if either of those other two types are smart enough to pick up other attributes, they will say, this person is making more deals by just being more relationship focused. And the other two types will occasionally be disguised as a relationship oriented person because they've seen it be affected.

Interesting. So when you're going into a negotiation, of course you have your own personality types. For me, I would definitely be the accommodator. And I know Matt was putting all fingers towards himself for the analyst.

How would you snuff someone out? Are there key attributes to someone you would look for before negotiation?

Well, nobody's ever gonna look like an assertive who's not.

Yeah, that's pretty obvious, that one.

Yeah. I mean, and that's what everybody, everybody sees that guy coming. Guy or gal, that's a person we always imagine on the other side. Now, our analytical type, if they're talking in their normal type, they have, they appear cold what they are. They strive very hard to be dispassionate and will inadvertently come off as cold and distant in that mode. And they're a little mystified by that because they're not cold people. And so they, well, look, you're just not seeing me for who I am. But that type comes off as cold and distant. And no one who comes off as cold and distant, I mean, you can't fake that. Now the other two can fake themselves as accommodators because they've seen how effective it is. Like my, my now daughter in law, Maya, who's our director of marketing. And she in herself is a brilliant negotiator. She cuts phenomenal deals. She's a natural born analyst. And everybody mistakes her as an accommodator because she has developed this delightfully upbeat and happy, seemingly happy, go lucky personality. Now she is processing information like a supercomputer. Underneath, her analyst is going full bore underneath this exterior of being this delightful, happy, upbeat person, which is one of the reasons why she cuts such phenomenal deals because her supercomputer is churning all the time and she's so pleasant to deal with that people love making deals with her.

That makes perfect sense because she's. Yeah, she's just got the information. She knows where she's headed, but at the same time has almost this front, you know, where she's learned those abilities to be happy, go lucky, cheerful and all that.

She's a great learner. I mean she learns really fast, which is sort of the one. It's a characteristic that's not exclusive to any of the three types. And you can actually test for it. It's called openness. And you know, there's. The five Factor Inventory is a psychological test that actually tests people for openness. Adam Grant wrote. Adam Grant's a brilliant writer. And among the books that he wrote that are really worth reading is another. It's called Originals. And in it he talks about in the opening parts of that book that originals tend to be very high in the trait of openness, which is, you know, they learn and adapt. They take in the data that improves design, the evidence, the information, and then they learn from it quickly. And that's why they tend. Many of the world's originals are tremendously open because they're open to learning.

Sure.

Would it be safe to say that if you are like an analyst or an assertive, that it's probably a good idea to try to learn how to accommodate people and become more of that accommodating person to win at negotiations?

Yeah. And the accommodating aspect is really isn't any more complicated than having a pleasant demeanor and a pleasant exterior. You don't have to actually give in on anything. And some people misunderstand the word accommodator, but it's a very relationship oriented person. But again, I'll use Maya, our director of marketing as an operator as a great example. I mean she is delightful to deal with. She's just wonderful. She doesn't give in on anything. So she looks like she's accommodating, but she's accommodating towards a relationship. She's accommodating towards the atmosphere that she wants to create with you. And you do that. And then you can take. You can not necessarily a hard line, but you can take a firm line. You can be very honest with people because you're honest with people in a very gentle and straightforward manner. So you don't give in, but you do protect the relationship. You do protect the environment that we talk with in. And that's how you make great deals.

Yeah, that's. This is cool because we're. Yeah, Matt and I, about a year and a half ago or so, because we worked together for 12, 13 years or so now, but we never actually took, like a personality test and got deep on all that. So we did the Colby and, you know, the disc, all these things out there. And it's interesting because we finally understood ourselves, but then how we interact with each other. So it just seems like the same thing's happening here with negotiations. I mean, it's just a people interaction and definitely understanding yourself. It seems like you could shore up all these little minute things that, I don't know, like maybe it's asking for feedback from someone to call out those attributes. Are there kind of exercises you'd recommend, folks?

Yeah, you know, you can. I mean, and what I loved about the way you described that just now is I could tell the way you talked about it, you found that process really enjoyable and rewarding.

True.

And that, you know, that's one of the ways to make negotiation more enjoyable, to make, you know, all aspects of business more enjoyable and more rewarding, because then it spills over into the rest of your life. You know, business is just an aspect of life. It's human interaction. So as soon as you start to adopt this and try to get better at it and have better relationship relationships and make better deals, it is a lot more satisfying. It's a lot more rewarding. It makes everything about life much more interesting.

Yeah. No, I love it. That's what it got our partnership way better. And we're able to hire the right people on our team.

We knew what gaps were left on.

Our team for sure.

Yeah, exactly.

Now, I'm curious. When you walk into the room and you identify somebody as, let's say, the analyst or no, sorry, the assertive, you notice they're in assertive, and they're going to just kind of be straight to the point and kind of hard nosed with you, how. How would you change your negotiation tactics with someone like that?

Well, an assertive wants to be heard out. I mean, they really don't care if you agree. They do want to make sure that they've been hurt, and that's an easy one. I'm going to hear them out. You know, I'm not going to counter attack. I'm going to. I'm going to be cautious. An assertive mode has a natural tendency to trigger combativeness in people. We get something in our brains called mirror neurons, and it's actually an involuntary chemical reaction that begins to take place immediately when you pick up on somebody else's demeanor. And the involuntary chemical reaction with assertives Is it triggers combat and there's troop.

The.

The downward spiral from that feeling comes when you're angry. It constricts your thinking, but you also feel more self righteous.

So you're going to dig into your bad position and you're going to feel even more entitled to do so. Even if the feedback that you're getting is telling you that your current course of action is only making things worse. When your thinking is constricted and you feel self righteous, you don't care. You're going to keep going anyway, you know, and you're not gonna. You're not gonna back off. So if I trigger the. If I see the other side of this is assertive, I'm like, all right, cool. This person just wants to make sure that I hear. So the more I hear this person out, the more agreeable they're gonna be.

Oh, that's cool. I love it because you can just pick out like, okay, how do they want to spend their time here with this interaction? Oh, they want to be heard. Cool. Well, that's gonna give me a lot of ammunition to figure out where to take this conversation.

Exactly. Tremendous amount of ammunition. And if you can keep yourself from overreacting to them initially, then you're headed. You know that there's a real clear fork in a road and one is a great path and you have turned into downward spiral.

Yeah. Do you have anything, Matt?

Yeah, well, I was gonna. It's sort of a shift of focus a little bit, but I want to touch on body language a little bit. I know you've got the 7, 38, 55 principle which says basically 55% of negotiations is body language. Can you speak into that a little bit? And what kind of things are you looking for with body language?

Well, what you're really looking for in all of those. And people sometimes get really bent out of shape on the specific numbers in the 7, 38, 55. And you talk about human nature, and there aren't really any hard numbers in human nature, but what you really want to look for is when stuff is out of line. So if their body language is not adding up to their tone of voice or the words that they're saying, it doesn't matter what that percentage is. What matters is it's out of line. And then.

What you would use to figure it out is a communication tactic, if you will, that we use is just called labeling. It's just sort of calling out what you're seeing. And if you say, if somebody says yes to you, but their body language Communicates discomfort. You simply say, look, you know, I heard you say yes, but you seem uncomfortable.

And it's at that point, subconsciously or consciously, they know that you can see that. What they really want to know is, can you discuss the elephant in the room without either denying or attacking the elephant at the. Can you just discuss it? And when you show them that you can discuss it without denying it or attacking it, there's a tremendous amount. They feel tremendously reassured. You seem very accountable to them.

And what we want out of relationships is accountability. We don't want perfection, but we do want accountability. And as soon as you start giving them that sense of accountability.

Then their hope to work things out in a very productive way with you for the future, then that. Then that begins to increase and encourage. And as everything is about our future, are we going to sack? Is it look bad? Does it look good? Are we sacrificing? Is it costing? And as soon as the opportunity for a better future is there, then we're tremendously flexible.

I like that. Because with the right type of questioning, like you were saying, the why is is poking at them, you know, that's gonna get them to feel a little closed up. So you don't do that. But the labeling, it sounds like, oh, well, it seems like you're feeling this. Oh, is that because X or, you know, you kind of. You're there to almost guide them as maybe a counselor in those times.

Yeah, and which is why there's a lot of overlap between great counseling. Yeah, there's a lot of overlap. And then also it's amazing, you know, with this. With this calling it out and then just. Just letting it sit there. You know, one of my favorite stories of calling out one of the guys that's a friend and a client, he's getting blown off by a secretary. He's trying to get an appointment with a CEO, and she's blowing him off. And he literally says, you know.

It feels like I'm getting blown off. And just let it sit there and just, you know, with no accusation, nothing, you know, just let it sit there. And that broke down the barriers enough with her, because she was, in fact, blowing them off. Because up to that moment in time, he seemed like every other salesperson.

Which.

Is pitching and not listening. But as soon as she instinctively felt like, all right, here's the guy that's actually going to pay attention to us, maybe this guy gets past a gatekeeper, and he did, and he got the.

Appointment, bam, it's cool. It's like, you don't have to be that different to, you know, at least get ahead or get past the gatekeeper or get the email responded to whatever you're trying to get.

Nah, you don't, you don't. You know, to borrow the phrase from Tony Robbins, it's usually a 2 millimeter tweak that's gonna make all the difference in the world.

I believe it.

Now, I'm curious about the name of the book, Never Split the Difference. You know, when I've talked to a lot of people about negotiation, where, you know, usually the consensus is you're kind of going for a win win by the end of the negotiation where both parties kind of felt like they went, they won. Now when I, when I think of the title Never Split the Difference, it kind of means, I mean, I assume it kind of means like, don't meet in the middle. Like, if that person's at 5,000 and you're at 2,000, don't go, you know, 3,500 or whatever. The math works out. I'm not doing fast math. But.

You know, is that kind of the meaning of the book is, is you should be winning at the negotiations as opposed to, you know, kind of meeting in the middle with the negotiations?

Well, yeah, I mean, meeting in the middle. I mean, first of all, most of the time that's a sucker move. There's an old saying in negotiations, a person that offers to meet you in the middle is usually a poor judge of distance.

That's good.

So somebody, somebody who starts offering to split the difference early on probably just, just change the goal post so that the target was different and they ended up where they wanted to be all along. So it's usually a sucker move. The, the real, the cutthroat negotiators will sound like a win win, and they'll say, hey, look, I'm, you know, I'm looking for a win win here. Let's talk about this a little bit. You know, let me throw out some ideas to you, and you throw out your ideas and you know, was. But the difference, we'll meet in the middle. Well, you know, they're, they're just maneuvering you to where they wanted you to be along. Problem one, you know, problem two, like our principles. You know, I'm not sure if your, your morals, your principles are good or mine are. So let's split the difference. We'll compromise our principles. Now, that doesn't feel right.

No way.

No, it does not. So.

Actually be open to the best outcome. And, you know, I also need to be open to the idea that you might be right, you know, not splitting the difference. I never be so sure of what you want that you wouldn't take something better. What happens if your idea is better than mine? We split the difference. I just screwed up your idea. I just cheated myself because I had so much tunnel vision. I was so focused that I was right that I left all this opportunity, all this money on the table. So it's really about avoiding compromise like death and taking the time to find out what the best deal actually is. And then we decide whether or not we want it.

Makes sense to me. At the end of the day, it should be a win on their end as well. But that's not how you're framing it. Your mind while you're in the middle of it all.

Yeah, I'm just. I'm looking for the best outcome. Now I also know that, you know, if I make you feel like you lost, that's going to hurt me long term because you're not, you're not going to say nice things about me and you're not going to want to keep doing business with me.

Right.

And survival is about long term collaboration. And I don't survive by making people feel like they lost.

Yeah. Yeah. It's spreading joy through strategic negotiation. I love it.

Amen. There we go. We gotta spread joy. One happiness.

Hell yeah.

I love it.

Let's end on that note. I love it, man.

Awesome. One question we like to ask all of our guests before we wrap up. Are there any books that you. You find yourself recommending to your clients a lot or maybe you revisit yourself quite often?

Yeah, well, and it's kind of what's the purpose of the book? Most of the books that we read are about better performance because if you get better human performance, then your negotiation is going to get better, your marketing is going to get better, you know, your. Your collaborations will be better. So there's kind of. There's kind of two books that are real high on my list of performance. One of them is the Rise of Superman by Steven Kotler and the other is the Talent Code by Daniel Coyle. Those are both worth reading. Those worth or phenomenal books.

Love it.

Yeah, I've read the Kotler book, but I haven't read the other one, so I'll have to, I'll have to check that one out.

Yeah. And you also did mention the Black Swan book by Nassim Talib and Adam Grant's originals. So we'll link all those things in the show notes as well.

And of course, never split the difference.

Of course.

Never split the difference.

For sure, man. How can people go ahead. Sorry.

Yeah, you just get ready. How could they be in touch.

Yeah, you know it.

Excellent. Yeah, we've got a weekly negotiation newsletter that's free that people are getting a lot of value out of. It comes out on Tuesday mornings. They're concise, actionable, and it's a single article. You know, it's not one of those newsletters where there's so many choices, you don't know what to do and you don't choose anything.

Yep, that's right.

You know, this newsletter comes out once a week, Tuesday mornings, which is a good timing in your week to get you rocking and rolling after you got Monday behind you and you get down to business, tune up your day. It's a short read, five to 800 words, actionable advice. Now, best way to subscribe to the newsletter. And again, it's complimentary or it's free. As federal employees, as I used to be, one, we say, if it's free, I'll take three. Good price. There's a text to sign up function. The message you send is FBI empathy, all one word, lowercase. Don't let your spell check. Put a space between FBI empathy and you text that one word message to the number 22828 and the number again is 22828. FBI empathy as one word and you'll get a message back asking you for your email. And that's the gateway to everything. It's the gateway to the website, training announcements, all sorts of content that we put out free and some content that we charge.

As you should. Damn it. Good.

Free.

I love it. Yeah, we'll link that or we'll make sure that's super clear in the show notes too. So if you missed it, just go, go to the show notes. Awesome, Chris, that was awesome. I think you're the first one, like a solid text type of call to action on our podcast, too, so Bravo.

Dig it. Very cool. Awesome, Chris. Well, thank you for your time and let's get you out of here and. Yeah, man, we'll talk soon. We're gonna. We're gonna get some. Some movers and shakers on your negotiation tactics and get some stories.

Excellent. Thanks. Thanks for having me on, fellas. I really enjoy it.

Of course, man. Have a good one.

Thanks, everybody, for listening to this episode of the Hustle and Flowchart podcast, for taking the time to listen. We want to give you something a little bit special. Every single episode that we do we actually have somebody on our team take notes. We basically have a Cliffs Notes version of every episode where you can go and find all of the tips and tactics that they laid out, all of the resources that they laid out, all the good stuff from this episode. We actually have a nice, simple notes version that you can find on our website. So go to evergreenprofits.com find this episode that you just listened to, and give us your email address, and we'll send you the notes.

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